This invention pertains to a multi-axis-adjustable, high-precision form system for assisting in the fabrication of poured-concrete, ground-support footings, or pedestals, intended for supporting the lower ends (the bases) of elongate upright columns, such as columns that are to be, or may be, included in a structural frame which is to be defined by an array of plural, distributed, upright columns interconnected by transverse beams. The terms “footing” and “pedestal” are used herein interchangeably.
In a more specific sense, the invention proposes a high-precision adjustability footing-fabrication form system which features independent, six-axis, form-template adjustability—three linear, and three rotational—and which employs, for each footing that is to be fabricated, a vertically, reversibly stackable plurality of relatively simple-configuration, independent, intercooperative form templates that are freely reversibly assembleable in a predetermined, vertical stack order designed to accommodate convenient and accurate, poured-concrete footing fabrication, and that offer versatile, relative-motion (including (a) within footing site template-to-template, and (b) footing-site-form-assembly-to-footing-site-form-assembly), infinitely positionable, spatial-disposition adjustability features regarding the mentioned linear (namely, X, Y and Z), and rotational (namely, pitch, roll and yaw), axes.
While, as will become apparent to those generally skilled in the relevant art, from a reading of the invention description which follows below herein, the form system of the present invention may be employed in the number of different column-support applications, it has been found to offer particularly utility in relation to assisting in the formation of poured-concrete anchoring footings/pedestals prepared for the bases of columns that are to be employed in open, column-and-beam frame structures designed to receive and support plural, elongate, horizontal runs of pipe that may extend for long distances over and above the ground in large oil and/or gas facilities. Accordingly, the preferred and best mode embodiment of the invention is illustrated and described herein generally in such a setting.
While various different, specific shapes of column-support footings may readily be handled by the form system of the present invention, the preferred and best mode embodiment of it which is set forth herein is presented, for illustration purposes, in relation to a footing style that includes a rebar-reinforced, stepped-lateral-dimension (larger-lateral-dimension, rectangular-block lower-section, and smaller-lateral-dimension (diametral), cylindrical, upper-section), poured-concrete base, from the upper, flat, essentially horizontal and circular surface of which upper base section there project plural, upwardly extending anchoring bolts to which appropriate lower-end-attached, column-base anchoring structure for an upright column may be secured.
Further describing, generally, certain features that are offered by the system of the present invention, the plural-form-template arrangement (mentioned above) which is employed during the creation of each footing is intended, through affording a capability for implementing the featured high-precision spatial adjustability of the invention, to enable, among other things, precise spatial-disposition formation and alignment associated with arranging a plurality of footings distributed in a planned array thereof intended to receive and support a planned population of columns, such as the above-mentioned array-plurality of structural-frame columns. In such a “column-plurality-array” context, and with respect to the important feature of precision spatial adjustability, the various templates which form part of the system of the present invention are relationally designed, as will be described below herein, to accommodate, in a “fine-tuning” manner, the mentioned six axes of independent adjustability, i.e., linear adjustability along X, Y, and Z axes, and rotational adjustability about appropriate pitch, roll and yaw axes. This important, fine-tuning precision adjustability feature—which I recognize to be very useful in many frame-column-support applications—is especially useful in the context of preparing footings that are to be employed as column-base supports in relation to the fabrication/assembly of a structural frame from initially precision-manufactured column, beam and associated column/beam nodal-interconnect frame elements, such as those kinds of structural-frame elements which are illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,837,016, 7,021,020, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 201210110947, and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0066612.
So as to augment the herein provided, specific description and illustration of the present invention, the entire disclosure contents of these, four, prior-art documents are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
In accordance, therefore, with a preferred and best-mode embodiment of the invention, and discussed from one point of view, the invention offers a precision fabrication form system for assisting in preparing a poured-concrete (base)—with upwardly projecting anchor bolts—footing for anchorably supporting the lower end of an elongate, upright, structural-frame column—this system including a reversibly stackable plurality of independent, intercooperative, fabrication-form templates that are reversibly assembleable in a predetermined stack order above a prepared ground excavation into which concrete pouring to be associated with such a footing is to occur, with certain ones of these form templates being infinitely adjustable relative to one another, and relative to the ground, in both pre-pour and post-pour conditions, to accommodate staged, high-precision, X-axis, Y-axis, Z-axis, and pitch, roll and yaw axes, dispositions for the poured-concrete base and anchor bolts in such a footing. In the invention system descriptions that are presented below herein, and while the following axial relationships do not necessarily need to be the case, the X-axis parallels the pitch-axis, the Y-axis parallels the roll-axis, and the Z-axis parallels the yaw-axis.
What may be thought of herein as the several, “relative adjustability” form templates include:
(a) a grade template restable on the ground immediately above, adjacent, and laterally surrounding a prepared ground excavation, defining a generally horizontal support plane, and constructed for selective, independent, X-axis. Y-axis, Z-axis, pitch-axis and roll-axis adjustments relative to the ground and to such a prepared excavation, as well as to adjacent footing sites;
(b) a pedestal template anchorably supportable in a vertically stacked manner on the grade template's defined support plane, adapted to receive and support a pedestal, upper-base-section, pour form (generally cylindrical herein), and adjustable independently and selectively along X, Y axes, and about a yaw axis, relative to the grade template;
(c) a base-plate template supportable in a vertically stacked manner on the pedestal template, adapted to receive and support, in a vertically stacked manner, an anchor-bolt template, and
(d) an anchor-bolt template placeable in a freely vertically received condition relative to the base-plate template.
The form templates further include a temporary and intermediate-use centerline template which is freely placeable, in a vertically stacked, and removeably nested, condition, on the base-plate template as a removable precursor to placement, relative to the base-plate template, of the anchor-bolt template.
Yet another way of visualizing the invention is that it proposes a precision, poured-concrete, column-ground-support footing-fabrication form system, for assisting in preparing, at each of a plurality of spaced, column-support ground sites distributed in a predetermined-footprint ground array of such sites, a footing for anchorably supporting the lower end of an elongate, upright, structural-frame column which is to be included in a plural-column, plural-interconnecting-beam, structural frame constructed within the array footprint, wherein each footing includes a concrete base and plural anchor bolts projecting upwardly therefrom, and precision fabrication utilizing the system is enabled via system structure designed to accommodate precision, independent, X, Y, Z, pitch, roll and yaw axes spatial positioning of the base and anchor bolts associated with each such footing.
These and various other features and advantages that are offered by the present invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of it which follows below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.